Anne Carson wins the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature

The Swedish Academy announced in Stockholm on Thursday, October 8, 2026, that the Nobel Prize in Literature goes to Anne Carson. The academy praised her bold and inventive body of work, which takes up the classical tradition and opens new forms for contemporary literature.

Carson was born in Toronto and is 76. For decades she has drawn on the stories and themes of ancient Greek and Roman literature, and her books move freely between poetry, essay and fiction. Readers know her translations of the poet Sappho, gathered in "If Not, Winter", and "The Trojan Women" from 2021, an illustrated retelling of Euripides in modern language.

According to the academy's permanent secretary, Ingrid Carlberg, Carson was in Iceland when the news reached her and was taken completely by surprise. In 2024 the poet wrote in the London Review of Books that she lives with Parkinson's disease.

The prize is worth 12 million Swedish crowns, about 1.2 million US dollars. It will be presented in Stockholm on December 10, 2026.

Source: Al Jazeera